They weren't there in the beginning, but they were there at the end.

Dorothy Ashe, Charlotte Nance, Jean Chou, Judy Sutton Evans, Nancy Wall, Debbie Penn, Crystal Craig, Pam Harwood and Margaret Amundson are among the last members of Augusta's first garden club -- the Cranford Flower Club.

The club was the outgrowth of the Cranford Library and Tea Room, started in 1908 by a small group of descendants of the original settlers of Augusta's Hill area.

Mrs. Bryan Cumming was a leader in founding the tea room and library, whose yearly proceeds went to the Children's Hospital and the West End Free Library.

The name Cranford was chosen because that's what the Hill area was often called at the time.

In 1912, the Cranford Club bought a clubhouse at 2224 Pickens Road on the Hill. The flower club was the result of a flower show put on in the spring of 1922 by the Cranford Club.

After that first flower show, a group of Cranford Club members and other flower lovers met on the piazza of Misses Augusta and Louisa K. Smith on Milledge Road and decided the time had come for Augusta to have a garden club, "and then and there they went about forming one." For many years, it was a branch of the Cranford Club library and tea room.

At that first meeting, there were, besides the hostesses, Mrs. R.J. Diebold, Mrs. Bryan Cumming, Mrs. Guy Bowen, Mrs. James E. Harper, Mrs. Charles Kerr, Mrs. Josiah Clark, Mrs. W.P. Manning and Mrs. John Shoemaker.

As their first civic project, in conjunction with the Augusta Woman's Club, members planted dogwood and crape myrtle trees on Walton Way from 15th Street to Hickman Road.

Next, the club decided to write a column for flower lovers. The Cranford Flower Clinic appeared in The Augusta Chronicle for many years.

The club also helped residents of West End form the "Library Flower Club" and its junior branch, the "Big Little Flower Club."

Ms. Ashe joined the club around 1990 and remained a member until it disbanded.

"It was a painful decision, but some of our members were working," she said. "One was taking care of grandchildren, and the ones who had been in it the longest were in their 90s. It just reached the point that it was the thing to do."

Ms. Ashe brought a small orange box with a history of the club and yellowed type-written yearbooks from the 1970s and '80s when she and Mrs. Nance returned last week to Barrett Plaza in the federal courthouse complex, which the club maintained in years past.

The box that once held sheets of 6-by-3 inch paper was given to Ms. Ashe by Ida Pope Hamby, the oldest member of the Cranford Flower Club before it disbanded in 2000.

The rest of the club's records were donated to the Augusta Museum of History, and the club's funds were donated for the beautification of the Augusta Common, Phinizy Swamp and the Augusta Botanical Club, according to Ms. Ashe.

She and Mrs. Nance recalled planting canna lilies and day lilies at Barrett Plaza. And pulling weeds.

"Most of the women in the club had gardeners, but we still came and actually pulled the weeds," said Mrs. Nance, who was in the club in the 1970s. "We had some fabulous women in there when I was in. I just can't tell you. They were real community people -- Louise Sheehan, Dorothy Schley, Annie B. Weigle. I mean people who really knew about plants and loved Augusta.

"Mrs. Grover (Corrie Ann) Maxwell was a member when I was in. Mrs. Elise Morris. They loved this town, and they did a lot for the town. We didn't do fabulous things, but we did some things."

"We started a garden therapy program at the VA hospital to help the men recover," Ms. Ashe added. "We were the forerunners of this movement now about green space."

At Christmas, they also gave distinctively wrapped gifts to residents of the Widow's Home on Greene Street.

Mrs. Evans said she was "pulled into" the club as a young 40-year-old by her neighbor. Most of the women in the club were in their 70s, and her opinion of them equaled Mrs. Nance's.

"They were wonderful women, and we learned so much from them about gardening," she said.

Mrs. Chou said the Cranford Club was one of the most enjoyable clubs she'd ever been a member of.

"I learned so much about gardening," she said. "We shared our plants. My yard has never looked as good since."

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylvia.cooper@augustachronicle.com.